Provincetown, the "Outer Cape," and Wellfleet Too

liamsaunt · October 20, 2023

On 10/15/2023 at 11:54 AM, TdeV said:

That Chicken pesto alfredo penne WITH lobster and shrimp sure looks good though. Won't go to waste, I hope!

It did not go to waste. My husband's brother took it home with him.

Belated end to this visit. Sunday we went back to Oysterfest to watch the shuck off finals. It was a lot less crowded, which was nice. The fellow who won was from neighboring Eastham.

After the shuck off they had an auction to raise money for the local school. This fisherman contributed a 16 pound lobster. He said the winner could keep it, but he was hoping that he would be allowed to put it back in the water with a GPS tag so that it could be tracked.

It went for $3,000 to a vegetarian who wanted it back in the water.

We didn't eat anything at the festival other than a shared special Oysterfest gelato from Gelato Joy

Next day we went for a couple of beach walks. At Fisher Beach in Truro, we saw our first shark fin from shore. It was patrolling down by this bird filled jetty. Pretty cool

Then we went to Provincetown for a visit to my favorite bookstore

and a long walk at Herring Cove beach

Followed by dinner at Ciro and Sal's. It was too cold to sit out in their lovely courtyard

But the inside was cozy too

We shared an order of mussels in marinara

and then husband had shrimp scampi, which he did not enjoy. He said the garlic was bitter and raw

My shrimp puttanesca was better, so we shared that

Which brings us to Tuesday, and time to go home. We stopped for one last hike at Fort Hill in Eastham to take in the views. The foliage was starting to change

And then had lunch at Mac's in Chatham. Warm lobster roll for husband

Shrimp fried rice for me

...and that's probably it for us on Cape Cod until next year.

rotuts · October 20, 2023

@liamsaunt

thank you for taking the time

to take us along.

and the menu's

liamsaunt · May 5

Another year, another return to the Cape. We are not on the Outer Cape right now, that is coming later this summer, but I figured I would put this visit here rather than starting a new thread. Instead, we are in Falmouth for the week. We've never stayed on this part of the Cape before. My initial impression is that the town is charming, but much more densely populated than the Outer Cape. I imagine that in the summer it would be uncomfortably crowded.

We arrived Friday night. The house we are staying in is right on the water, and not elevated up on a dune like the places we stay at in Wellfleet. I would not want to be here during a big storm. Here's the front yard.

We can see Martha's Vineyard right off shore (not in this picture though), and can watch the ferries going back and forth from Woods Hole to the island.

My sister and nephew joined us for the weekend. The rest of the week will be just my husband and me. I'm planning on doing some cooking to amuse myself during the day. This weekend, though, we are dining out. Unfortunately, this area is not known for its dining options. We are also working around my nephew's food allergy. Last night we went to an Italian place called Villagio at the Regatta. No menu pictures, unfortunately. We ordered a couple of appetizers to share. Clams casino

Bruschetta

Calamari (no fried shrimp or lobster on their menu, so my nephew could have some. He was excited)

For entrees, my nephew ordered the bolognese (no picture). The rest of us had cod. I ordered cod picatta

Sister ordered cod toscana

and husband had cod limone.

The entrees were all massive. If we had known we would have shared something. None of us enjoy leftover cod, so unfortunately a lot of it went to waste. I didn't even taste my pasta. We were too full to even look at the dessert menu.

Yesterday morning, my husband and I went into town to check out the French bakery, Maison Villatte. This bakery is run by the original baker at PB Boulangerie in Wellfleet, and our understanding was that the two places are fairly similar. It did indeed look quite familiar. I took lots of pictures. Croissants

Muffins

Tarts

Quiches

Fougasse

sandwiches

pastries

And our selections, back at the house.

It would be very dangerous to have a bakery like this at home!

Edited May 5 by liamsaunt (log)

liamsaunt · May 6

Saturday night we had dinner at the top rated Italian restaurant in town, La Cucina Sul Mare. We could only get a reservation at 5:30 (a lot of the restaurants close at 8PM in this town). It was absolutely packed when we arrived. We ordered four oysters rockefeller to start (one each).

And an order of the warm bruschetta at my nephew's request. Unfortunately this was a soggy and not warm.

My nephew took a picture of his linguini with giant meatball and said to share it with you. He said it was very bland. It's rare for him not to finish a meatball, but he left about half of this plate behind.

I ordered the swordfish piccata, minus the shrimp garnish. This was also bland, and oddly lacking in lemon flavor. I think these purple flowers must be the official garnish of Falmouth-they were on all the plates yesterday too.

Sister had the linguini with clams. She said it was...bland!

Husband ordered a special of swordfish with clams and sausage. It came in a tomato sauce that was not mentioned when the server described the dish. Note the ubiquitous purple flower.

No dessert, as once again the portions were massive and much food went uneaten.

My sister and nephew returned home yesterday, so it's just my husband and me for the rest of the week. Here's the kitchen at the house. It has nice views of the water.

The beach on a gray Cape Cod spring day

After trudging along the cold and windy beach all morning, we decided the next best thing to do was to go to town and find some ice cream. That's what you do if you are from New England 🙂

Ben and Bill's Chocolate Emporium looked promising. I am sure we will try most of the options in town before the week is out.

The options

I thought the lobster flavor was probably vanilla with chocolate lobsters in it or something, so I walked down the case to check the sign for it...

Um.....OK. I got mint chocolate chip, which was nice and minty but had too many chocolate chunks for my personal taste. I just ate around most of them.

All the fish markets in town are closed on Sundays, so we had to eat out again. We chose Estia, a Greek place. We started with calamari, which was large enough for about six people. What we managed to eat was tender and well seasoned.

I had the shrimp saganaki for my entree. I think there were 12 large shrimp in there and about three cups of rice. It was tasty but much too much food.

Husband ordered the shrimp and swordfish skewers, which also came with grilled vegetables and fries.

And both entrees also came with huge salads! Next time we go out I think we are going to just share something.

weinoo · May 6

8 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

She said it was...bland!

Well, this is called consistency in the restaurant business!

liamsaunt · May 7

Yesterday was another gray Cape Cod spring day. I went out and did a little exploring while my husband worked. This is the beach that you get access to with the house.

There is a lot of sand dredging happening in town right now to clear the channels for increased boat traffic and replenish the beaches before the tourist season starts. The dredger was working directly behind the beach.

I found a handful of sea glass for my vast collection back home. I picked up a couple of shells too, though I usually only look for sea glass.

Here's a house under construction near the beach. There is a lot of new construction happening in town, and all of the houses I have seen being built are quite large.

Osprey

I decided to try a different ice cream parlor.

Peanut butter caramel. Too sweet and not worth eating. Oh well!

We decided to go out for Mexican food. Husband had a margarita

I had cod tacos

And he had lobster enchiladas.

Post dinner walk on another beach in town

liamsaunt · May 8

Another note of possible interest about the huge house I posted a picture of yesterday. I was wondering if perhaps it was an old home that was being restored, which is why it is so close to the beach, so I did some research last night. It is not, it is new construction. The current owner tore down the old house that was there (an 8,000 sqft house!) and replaced it with this one. It's essentially in the footprint of the old house (though the new house is even larger), which is why the town approved it. I cannot imagine building new construction so close to the ocean in this day and age, but I guess people can do what they want with their money...

Yesterday was actually a sunny and warm day, so exploring was in order. We went to Woods Hole and visited Nobska Lighthouse

There was a pretty lookout point across the road

with a good view of the ferry to Martha's Vineyard

Beach walk

and then an ice cream stop. Coconut macadamia and coffee heath bar

Which necessitated another beach walk, so we drove to the largest beach in Falmouth, Old Silver.

People were swimming! That's just crazy

For dinner, we went to town for silly sushi. We decided to pick two share plates and two rolls to split.

Tuna carpaccio

Crispy rice with spicy tuna

And then I picked a jalapeño toro roll and husband chose a tempura shrimp roll with tuna and pineapple

It's back to gray and rain today, but the sunny day was an unexpected treat.

liamsaunt · May 9

Yesterday was pretty gray all day. I managed a few beach walks, but didn't take any pictures. Dinner was at another Italian restaurant in town, Osteria la Civetta. The menu is pretty small.

The interior, kind of cave like. I took this picture as we were getting ready to leave. The restaurant had been full earlier, but it emptied out rather quickly as we were finishing up, for reasons we would soon discover...

We shared some olives and whipped gorgonzola cheese

Husband had the swordfish pasta

and I chose the eggplant pasta.

We shared an affogatto for dessert

We heard rumbling in the sky as we were heading to the car. Luckily, our house was not too far from town, because about five minutes after we got home, the sky lit up and it started roaring thunder and slamming lightning down. There was golf ball sized hail! I had been offline all day and had no idea that the weather was coming. When I opened my weather app, the area we were in was purple surrounded by red on the radar! I had never even seen that before. Luckily we did not lose power and it was over in about an hour. Crazy weather.

It's back to calm today. Here's a couple of pictures from my morning walk.

rotuts · May 9

@liamsaunt

thank you for the menu.

the swordfish w pasta looks very tasty.

liamsaunt · May 12

Last installment for this trip. Our last meal for this visit was at Bleu, which is one of the best rated restaurants in the area. Unfortunately, it was by far our least favorite. Cocktail for my husband. I checked their online menu, and whatever this is was not listed. He said it was really unbalanced, both too sweet and too bitter.

Cotuit oysters.

Tuna tartare. This was fine, just a little bland.

Halibut with asparagus and rice in a pineapple beurre blanc. The piece of halibut they gave me was the folded over tail, so naturally it was overcooked. For almost $50, I would have appreciated a better cut of fish.

However, it was better than my husband's roasted chicken with mashed potatoes and carrots. I think they cooked the chicken the day before! It was completely dried out. The carrots were wildly overcooked too. We considered sending it back, but I knew I was not going to finish my dish and my husband liked it enough to have some, so he just ate the thigh off the plate and then we swapped.

A lady at the table behind us ordered the chicken too, and I heard her saying "the sauce is delicious, but the chicken is horrible!" So I guess it was just an off night.

We ordered a trifle to share for dessert. It was....fine.

We won't be back to Bleu if we return to this area. Falmouth is very pretty, but the Outer Cape is where I like to be.

Sea glass haul for the week

Menauhant beach

rotuts · May 12

@liamsaunt

its always disappointing to get sub-par food at a restaurant.

What is the triangular item next to the tuna ?

than you for taking us along.

Ive been to that bakery , in the off-season few times.

it really fantastic. love the aroma's of bakeries and patisseries .

to that far from Woods Hole and the WHPA

liamsaunt · May 13

23 hours ago, rotuts said:

@liamsaunt

its always disappointing to get sub-par food at a restaurant.

What is the triangular item next to the tuna ?

than you for taking us along.

Ive been to that bakery , in the off-season few times.

it really fantastic. love the aroma's of bakeries and patisseries .

to that far from Woods Hole and the WHPA

The dish was whipped tahini sauce, the tuna, a slaw, and the last thing on the plate is an orange slice.

rotuts · May 13

@liamsaunt

I know I need glasses , for sure

sorry for being a pest

having visuals issues w this :

ddddd.jpg.1a243f546bcffa8cfbe22f2942951eb0.jpg

looks Alien or possibly Infectious ?

liamsaunt · May 13

21 minutes ago, rotuts said:

@liamsaunt

I know I need glasses , for sure

sorry for being a pest

having visuals issues w this :

looks Alien or possibly Infectious ?

Oh hahaha! That was a taro chip. Sorry I missed that!

liamsaunt · June 1

We are in Wellfleet for the weekend, staying at the old house on the beach I have written about here before. It is beautiful, sunny and in the 70s, and is supposed to stay that way all weekend. I've already walked 10 miles on the beach today.

Last night we had to have dinner at Mac's Shack of course, it is tradition.

Oysters

My nephew opted for an appetizer of stewed calamari puttanesca style.

Niece wanted the spicy tuna mango martini app. Everything was shared

My nephew and husband's brother got Ritz cracker crusted bluefish with creamed spinach and mashed potatoes

Sister had green curry scallops

Niece had her two favorite sushi rolls

and my husband and I both had a special of bacon stuffed roasted halibut with roasted carrots. It was delicious.

Mac's doesn't really do desserts, but here's a strawberry tart I picked up for my nephew at PB Boulangerie bakery

**Smithy** · June 2

Every time I see one of your posts in this topic, I look at the food and then think, "why didn't I think of that?"

Never mind whether I could carry it out properly. 🙃

I'm looking forward to your posts about this visit, as I do for every visit!

liamsaunt · June 2

Here's another picture of the house we are renting.

It's really great. However, renting a house on the harbor comes with interesting risks. Here's what is in front of the house right now.

Under that mound a sand is a large, dead, decaying seal. We have to go out after every high tide and cover it up again because it smells horrible. It's too big and heavy to move, but if you cover it with sand the smell goes away. We have arrived to find dolphin carcasses stranded in front of the house before and those are small enough to drag out into the ocean. There was a whale stranding in the harbor a couple of years ago, but thankfully we were not here for that one. We have also been here for live strandings and rescues. There's a team in town dedicated to conducting the rescues of stranded marine animals, and they have a pretty good success rate.

Back to food. Last night we went in to Truro for dinner at Blackfish. Menu

Cocktails

We got some appetizers to share. Fried oysters

A special of salt and pepper squid with chili sauce and beans

pork belly

Nephew had a burger

Niece chose the short ribs

I had a special of scallops with pumpkin and harukei turnips

Sister and brother's husband each had the tuna bolognese

and husband had the lobster gnocchi

We shared two desserts. Chocolate tart with salted pretzel crust

Lemon panna cotta

After dinner we went for a walk on the beach for sunset

rotuts · June 2

@liamsaunt

looks like a wonderful dinner

Ive only had the deep fried version of S&P squid

readily available locally in Chinese restaurants , inc Chinatown rest.

where very little english is spoken

its one of my favorite dishes .

Im guessing you have had that version

how did the non fried dish compare ?

liamsaunt · June 4

On 6/2/2024 at 12:57 PM, rotuts said:

@liamsaunt

looks like a wonderful dinner

Ive only had the deep fried version of S&P squid

readily available locally in Chinese restaurants , inc Chinatown rest.

where very little english is spoken

its one of my favorite dishes .

Im guessing you have had that version

how did the non fried dish compare ?

I would say that the non fried squid was more tender. We all liked it a lot. I have a hard time sourcing good calamari near me, but would like to try and replicate it at home some time. I was hoping to get some at the fish market we stopped at on the way off the Cape yesterday, but they didn't have any.

Here's another photo that explains why stuff tends to wash up in front of the house. This is at rising tide. The water washes in and creates a river of sorts in front of the house. The water runs in to the marshlands located on the right of the house. Depending on the time of year, the water can be quite deep. We've been here during a king tide, which only happens a few times a year. At that time, the water comes all the way up to the top of the barrier wall and poles you can see in the photo.

Sunday we decided to try and go to the Beachcomber. We figured since it was not high season yet, we might be able to get parking. It is almost impossible to get a spot in the summer. Sure enough, we lucked out. Menus

Niece wanted mozzarella sticks

Nephew could not have any of the appetizers today. Sometimes he can, depending on what's on the specials menu and how many people they have working. Not today. He was able to have the french fries though, since they cook them in a dedicated fryer to accommodate gluten allergies. So, he was happy about that. He also got an oven baked quesadilla. They basically told him it was that or a salad. Luckily, he's used to it.

We were going to get raw oysters but skipped them once they told nephew he could not eat them due to potential contamination from peel and eat shrimp on the same station. Instead, we picked stuff he does not like. Steamer clams

Garlic steamed littlenecks

Niece had a steak sandwich

Husband got oyster tacos

Sister and husband's brother both got an oyster po boy

and I had a fried cod sandwich

Husband's brother went home Sunday after dinner, and my sister, niece and nephew went straight home yesterday morning. My husband and I took a more leisurely route, stopping in Chatham on the way home for lunch. Lighthouse beach

Mac's Chatham Fish and Lobster

Husband got a lobster roll

and I had a shrimp caesar salad

That's it for this visit. We'll be back soon enough, when it will be a lot more crowded!

Edited June 4 by liamsaunt (log)

rotuts · June 4

@liamsaunt

thank you for taking us along.

and thank you for the menus.

weinoo · June 29

Butch's, in Provincetown, now open and helmed by Kelly Fields.

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2024/06/28/butchs-provincetown/

Quote

Provincetown, that stretch of heaven on the tip of Cape Cod, boasts a number of landmarks that serve like compass points, texted to friends to plan perfect summer days. Meet at the Ptown Inn pool at noon. The Boat Slip at 5. Harbor Lounge at 8. The sprawling entertainment and hospitality complex in the center of town, the Crown & Anchor, is one of those points, too. But even though there’s been a restaurant on the property for decades, it wasn’t exactly known as a go-to dining destination. Or as James Beard Award-winning chef and recent Ptown transplant Kelly Fields tells it, “You leave tea and then walk down the street until you find some restaurant you can get into. And it was generally this place, but it didn’t feel fun and inviting to me.”

liamsaunt · June 30

21 hours ago, weinoo said:

Butch's, in Provincetown, now open and helmed by Kelly Fields.

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/2024/06/28/butchs-provincetown/

I was just looking at that menu this morning!

We are unexpectedly back in Provincetown for a week, maybe a bit longer. My nephew informed me the other day that his housemates from his service years in Montana were flying in to stay with him during the week of the 4th, and were staying at my house! He said, rather nicely, don't you usually go to the Cape for the 4th of July, hint hint? My husband found a cancellation at a house that we love, and we loaded up the car and left! We have no set plans, and no reservations (yet). It's weird, but it actually doesn't seem to be very crowded out here right now. All of the hotels had vacancy signs, and Resy shows open tables at almost all of the restaurants.

It's just my husband and me for a few days, and then my sister and niece are joining us once the Montana invasion arrives. We went to Mac's Fish House last night, per tradition. Drinks. Husband had a gin spin, and I had a ginger cooler mocktail.

Wellfleet oysters to start. These were teeny little guys! We took a tour of a Wellfleet oyster farm about five years ago where the farmer was telling us how he was trying to breed a smaller oyster that would have a cup like shape. We were wondering if these were his oysters, because they were much smaller than a typical Wellfleet and did indeed have a cup shape.

We also shared cod cheeks braised with fennel, tomatoes and capers, with grilled garlic bread. This is a new dish on the appetizer menu. It's fantastic. I think I am going to just get this for dinner from now on when we go to Macs and I don't know what I want.

I had a monkfish with Eastham mussels and garlic saffron aioli on fregola with pancetta and tomatoes. I am not a big fan of Eastham mussels. They are very tender, but massive. The monkfish and sauce were delicious. The fregola salad was too heavy on the pancetta for my taste.

Husband had a special of striped bass with udon noodles in a lobster broth with lobster meat and snow peas.

No dessert, too full!

liamsaunt · July 2

Sunday, after a very long beach walk, we stopped in to Mac's to get some snacks for the house

And then had dinner at Front Street.

The menu is massive. They had a soft shell crab appetizer that my husband wanted

and we also ordered some shrimp in a garlic butter sauce

I ordered seafood puttanesca over linguini

and husband had a special of scallops picatta

We split a pistachio creme brulee for dessert

We got out of dinner just in time to catch the sunset at Herring Cove.

Two photos because I could not decide...

Monday, husband worked and I walked. He took a break in the afternoon for "lunch" and we popped into town for an ice cream at the Nut House. My husband has a tendency to order the strangest sounding ice cream on the menu, and he did it again yesterday. Mine's the one the right: a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of blueberry. His is on the left: olive oil, salt, and pink peppercorn. Weird!

For dinner, we got a last minute reservation at Sal's Place. I've been wanting to try this place for a couple of years but you need a reservation, they never answer the phone, and there's no way to leave a message. Yesterday they randomly called me back and offered a table. Menu:

View from our table on the outdoor deck

Bread and oil

We ordered an arugula salad to start. They split it for us in the kitchen, so this is half

We also shared the arancini. These were great

Husband chose the seafood fra diavolo. He said it was delicious but could have been spicier. The waiter said they are still tweaking it because they had gotten some complaints that it was too spicy.

I had the peppercorn coated swordfish. It was delicious.

They brought over a plate of complimentary fudge to end the meal

And we were back to the beach just in time for sunset again!

Edited July 2 by liamsaunt (log)

weinoo · July 2

4 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

And then had dinner at Front Street.

4 hours ago, liamsaunt said:

For dinner, we got a last minute reservation at Sal's Place.

We've had fun times at both of these places. They actually had tables set up on the sand at Sal's the last time we ate there.

FauxPas · July 3

8 hours ago, weinoo said:

We've had fun times at both of these places. They actually had tables set up on the sand at Sal's the last time we ate there.

That might be pricey for them. I looked them up just for interest and found this on their Facebook page:

Sal's Place

We’ll be opening in Provincetown towards the end of June, unfortunately we basically get fined every day we’re open due to the ongoing nine years of litigation with our neighbour, so we’re doing the best we can to be open and limit our financial exposure.

Some background:

https://provincetownindependent.org/news/2022/11/02/owner-of-sals-fined-for-contempt/

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Provincetown, the "Outer Cape," and Wellfleet Too

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